Editor's Pick: Meet the Beetle

There’s something that’s bugging Mexican artist Damián Ortega, and he’s using the Institute of Contemporary Art to get it out of his system.

That something is the complex interaction between his native land and the affluent West, and his exhibit “Cosmic Thing,” one of three now on display at the ICA through Dec. 15, explores it through one of its most potent icons, the Volkswagen Beetle. Ortega’s sculptural decomposition of his own Bug, suspended from the ICA’s 30-foot-high ceiling, is the centerpiece of the exhibit.

Running concurrently with the Ortega exhibit are three other exhibits—”Pictures, Patents, Monkeys and More…On Collecting,” making its East Coast debut; Amy Cutler’s first solo museum show of drawings; and “Without Ground” by Kimowan McLain, commissioned for the ICA’s ramp.

Penn Current Express

Quoted Recently

“It’s a very confusing time. … This legislation has happened before we have a medical consensus about what to tell women.”

— Emily Conant, a professor of radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, on laws in 21 states that require doctors to tell women they have dense breast tissue, which can raise their risk for cancer and hide abnormalities. New breast-imaging technologies promise to detect more cancers in women, but can bring more false alarms as well. (The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 23, 2015)